The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 eBook

4th. The article of catechising, as far as the
age or state of the servants will permit it to be
done with decency, shall extend to them also,—­And
they shall be concerned in the conferences in which
I may be engaged with my family, in the repetition
of the public sermons. If any of them when they
come to me shall not have learned the catechism, I
will take care that they do it, and will give them
a reward when they have accomplished it.

5th. I will be very inquisitive and solicitous
about the company chosen by my servants; and with
all possible earnestness will rescue them from the
snares of evil company, and forbid their being the
companions of fools.

6th. Such of my servants as may be capable of
the task, I will employ to teach lessons of piety
to my children, and will recompense them for so doing.
But I would, by a particular artifice, contrive them
to be such lessons, as may be for their own edification
too.

7th. I will sometimes call my servants alone;
talk to them about the state of their souls; tell
them to close with their only servant, charge them
to do well and “lay hold on eternal life,”
and show them very particularly how they may render
all they do for me a service to the glorious Lord;
how they may do all from a principle of obedience
to him, and become entitled to the “reward of
the heavenly inheritance.”

To those resolutions did I add the following pages
as an appendix:

Age is nearly sufficient, with some masters to obliterate
every letter and action in the history of a meritorious
life, and old services are generally buried under
the ruins of an old carcase. It is a barbarous
inhumanity in men towards their servants, to account
their small failings as crimes, without allowing their
past services to have been virtues; gracious God,
keep thy servants from such base ingratitude!

But then O servants, if you would obtain “the
reward of inheritance,” each of you should set
yourself to enquire “how shall I approve myself
such a servant, that the Lord may bless the house of
my master, the more for my being in it?” Certainly
there are many ways by which servants may become blessings.
Let your studies with your continual prayers for the
welfare of the family to which you belong: and
the example of your sober carriage render you such.
If you will but remember four words and attempt all
that is comprised in them, Obedience, Honesty, Industry,
and Piety, you will be the blessings and Josephs of
the families in which you live. Let these four
words be distinctly and frequently recollected; and
cheerfully perform all your business from this consideration—­that
it is obedience to heaven, and from thence will leave
a recompense. It was the observation even of a
pagan, “That a master may receive a benefit from
a servant”; and “what is done with the
affection of a friend, ceases to be the act of a mere
servant.” Even the maid-servants of a house
may render a great service to it, by instructing the
infants and instilling into their minds the lessons
of goodness.—­In the Appendix of Rev. Thomas
Bacon’s Sermons Addressed to Masters and
Servants.